Kingdom of Heaven
by GreatnessInTragedy
Summary: Sara would do anything for the love of her life... [GSR implied I think]
1. 0 Little Lady

Disclaimer: CSI trademarked product, no infringement meant or implied.

Author: GreatnessInTragedy

Title: Kingdom of Heaven

Rating: R for subject matter.

Author's note: This is my first attempt at a fanfic... I truly apologize if it sucks, seems terribly out of character, drags on, or makes you angry/dissatisfied in any way. I'm unsure as to the category, I would like reviews (if any of you are kind enough and can spare a few moments) and I realize that this chapter is kind of redundant as to what has already occurred on the show (Season 5 spoilers in here… warning to any who have not viewed S.5 yet.)  
I think that's all for my ramblings for now.  
Oh. Wait. (Heh. Sorry!) I'll try to upload every Saturday. No promises, but I'll try.  
Thank you, and (hopefully) enjoy!  
- 3 Caitlin.

* * *

**Prologue

* * *

Sunday March 6th, 2005  
Unidentified Location **

Growing up, I was always assured that I should excel at whatever occupation I chose.  
I had an average family – mother, father, and older brother – your typical nuclear family.Everything seemed to be going well, my mother and father got along, my brother didn't grudge me too badly after I exposed his secret bag of weed.  
My father always told me how intelligent I was, and how pretty – I remember one night, he told me I could be model material. I was naturally slender and unusually tall for my young age. Model material was never what I had pictured for myself – I was self conscious, felt gawky and gangly. Simply graceless. And the unsightly space in my teeth didn't help my self-esteem. But my father made it seem… attractive, somehow. He called it a blessing, a gift, and he made it seem okay.

I'll always remember the night my father's words changed my life. Well, I mean, I suppose he had changed my life long before he said those words, and not necessarily for the better.  
My father had a habit. A bad one. And it wasn't long before my mother soon uncovered it.

Every night, before tucking me in, he would tickle me. My sides first. I had always hated how he had uncovered my weakness. I felt that any weakness, even something as simple as being ticklish, was a flaw. A frailty, a sign of vulnerability and helplessness.  
But there he was, tickling away, and all of a sudden he seemed to get an idea. As I squirmed and squealed, trying to get him to stop, he did something that stopped me dead in my tracks. Once he had finished, he told me that if I said anything to anyone, he would be taken away and I would be responsible for destroying the family.

And so it became our little secret.

Daddy would tuck me in early, before mother would even think about sending me to bed. But when she did, she would find me already under my blankets, lying there, what she considered soundly sleeping.  
But I never was.  
No, no. I was huddled underneath that comforter, praying that tomorrow night daddy would overcome his habit, and I could sleep easy.

He never did.  
And mother caught on.

She realized that every night, after daddy had drank his fill of brandy and heaved his sigh of contentment, he would meander up the stairs, and then the halls would be filled with the sound of giggles and squeals and protests for him to stop.  
And then silence.  
Guilty silence, that seemed to ooze and drip and squelch from the rafters.  
Embarrassed silence that could nearly choke one with its depth.

Needless to say, she was curious.  
So she took matters into her own hands.  
She took it upon herself to hide in my closet, and watch just what occurred after he got shit-faced on brandy and sluggishly moseyed up the carpeted staircase towards my bedroom.  
And when she saw what he had done, she made plans to punish him herself.

That was the night that my entire life was changed.  
While mother sat fuming and plotting, taking in the scene from behind the slatted, white-washed doors of my closet, father sat on my bed, stroking my cheek with his calloused fingertips.  
He had called me his princess, his little lady. He knew that I was insecure with myself. He had noticed that, more and more lately, I refused to smile my bright, wide, tooth-exposing smile that I had previously. He told me that I should have nothing to be ashamed of. I was pretty enough to become a model, and if I did, my diastema would be my special trait. Like Cindy Crawfords' mole, it would be the infamous 'Sara Sidle Smile'.  
Somehow, those stupid words had managed to warm my heart, and I never forgot them.  
My insecurities were slipping away, releasing me, like the bitter cold melts away when the sun shines high above.

That night, my father was the sun in his princess' kingdom of heaven.  
And the next day, he was dead.


	2. 1 Ice Cream and Stainless Steel

Disclaimer: CSI trademarked product, no infringement meant or implied.

Author: GreatnessInTragedy

Title: Kingdom of Heaven

Rating: R for subject matter.

Author's note: This is my first attempt at a fanfic... I truly apologize if it sucks, seems terribly out of character, drags on, or makes you angry/dissatisfied in any way. I'll continue to post chapters every Saturday, starting today. If I get positive feedback, I may try and write another. If not, I'll probably just leave this story to rot and continue to lurk around and leave this to the professionals.  
**Note possible Season 5 spoilers**

heart Cat

* * *

**  
Chapter 1

* * *

**

**Monday March 7th, 2005  
Unidentified Location  
**  
I've only ever admitted the truth behind my past to one other person in my entire adult life.  
When I was young, I was forced to admit it, over and over and over again. To keep me safe, they said.

But once I was safe, I buried it all deep within me, somewhere far away where it could never be found again.  
Every now and then, it creeps up from within me, spilling over and out in the form of unstoppable tears and incredulous vomit.  
Even now, I just can't seem to believe what happened to me.  
And at such a young age.

It's disgusting what people can do to one another.  
Why do we do it? Is it a learned trait?  
Is it genetic? Passed on from our parents, so no matter how long or how hard you fight it, it will still overwhelm you?  
Leaving you broken and weeping at your knees, begging for mercy and pleading insanity in the courtroom.

If it is genetic, I'm fucked.  
Seriously, honestly, and truly fucked.  
Look at my genes. I've got a father who liked to molest his own daughter, and a mother who took the law into her own hands, in the form of a sharpened kitchen knife.  
My mother was no more psychologically stable than my father.  
She got so angry at what he had done; I'm surprised she didn't kill **me**.

I'm still not entirely sure just why she got so angry.  
Did she view me as a victim, or as competition?  
Fuck. I still can't understand her.

She sent my brother and me out for the afternoon.  
He took me for ice cream. Just plain vanilla, I was never a big fan of all those fancy flavours and strangely-combined ingredients.  
As we headed home, I sang a song I had learned from a friend of mine at the playground earlier, and I skipped and played tag and solved math equations for my brother.  
It was a long walk to the ice cream truck and back.

When we came home, all I could see was red.  
Everywhere.  
The blood of my father, cast-off, all over.  
It smelled as though there were a million pennies shining beneath my shoes.  
The smell was so strong, I could taste it.  
I was choking on it; drowning in it.  
And there was my father, in the middle of it all.

There was something burning in his eyes.  
A mixture of anger, fear, disbelief… and something else.  
Maybe I just wished I saw it there, floating behind his glassy eyes, but I think I saw it.  
Lurking below his brown irises, floating within his pupils.  
Guilt. Remorse.

He knew that he was at fault for what had happened to him.  
And he knew why he had been disciplined.


	3. 2 Cold Storage

Disclaimer: CSI trademarked product, no infringement meant or implied.

Author: GreatnessInTragedy

Title: Kingdom of Heaven

Rating: R for subject matter.

Author's note: Sorry it took me so long to finally post. I missed last week, due to a crappy computer (I kind of had killed it… heh… but I fixed it again. Almost.) and a lack of interest. I know it's Sunday today and I said I would post every Saturday, but yesterday I was busy all day (Racing to do my homework that I left until last minute, and going out to see The Ring 2).  
Anyways.

I realize the last couple of chapters were kind of disturbing, and this one is as well, but these are the last ones like that for a while, I believe.   
This one is also really short, and I apologize.  
I'll stop rambling now.  
- heart Caitlin.

* * *

**Chapter 2

* * *

**

**Tuesday, March 8th, 2005  
2:24 a.m.  
Morgue  
**

"… I thought you said the body showed signs of rape?" Sara posed, genuinely confused.

"It does, but that's the thing… all the signs say that the rape occurred **after** death. All of the inflicted wounds occurred post-mortem…" David trailed off, taken aback by Sara's shocking display of disgust.

"You mean… Oh god. I think I'm going to be sick," Sara smiled, utilizing her infallible knowledge to suppress her gag reflex as the realization hit her. "You mean –"

Grissom interrupted, in his not-quite-rude, yet not-quite-polite, Grissomly manner. "I think we've got a necropheliac on our hands."


	4. 3 Splintered Reality

Disclaimer: CSI trademarked product, no infringement meant or implied.

Author: GreatnessInTragedy

Title: Kingdom of Heaven

Rating: R for subject matter.

Author's note: I decided to post a second chapter, to make up for my deficiency last week. This is a sort of "I'm sorry" and "Please, please, won't you continue to read?" type of thing. And no nastiness in this chapter at all!  
Sorry if it's completely out of character.

heart Cat

* * *

**Chapter 3**

**Tuesday, March 8th, 2005  
2:47 a.m.  
Grissom's vehicle

* * *

**

"We need to get back to that crime scene. We need to go over every inch of that house, find out who did this," Blatantly stating the obvious, Grissom placed his foot upon the gas pedal just a little more firmly. "We need to go back to that crime scene. We need to re-examine everything. I want you to dust for prints. Check everything. You got that? **Everything**."

"Griss…" vainly Sara tried to interrupt her unusually volatile supervisor.

"We need to catch this guy. He is sick… he's sick! I need to catch him. I need-"

"Grissom! Would you please… just… just stop it?" Sara was not one to beseech him in such a manner, but his nearly incoherent patois was only increasing her apprehension.

"Don't even ask me that. Just… just leave me alone for a minute."

"No! I'm not going to just… sit here, and listen to you prattle on like a madman. You need to stop it. You need to just… you need to stop talking. Just shut the fuck up and listen to me. _Now!_" Sara's pluck shocked even herself in her situation. "Please," she added as an afterthought.

"You don't… you don't understand," Hearing her supervisor, Mr. Gilbert Grissom: Superman Extraordinaire, seemingly made of stone and disconcerted by nothing, shaking and gasping for logic was much more than enough to shake her own stability.

She had to do something, say something, to make everything better.  
A few magic words and the questions are answered.  
In the same manner that a kiss can cure an injury, she had to say something to bring reason back to this man's shattered world.

As usual, she fucked it up.

* * *

**I just realized. I probably should have included this in the other chapters, but I'll start now.  
**

**TBC…**


End file.
